"The soup is gone. It is a very indigestible food, and we must therefore attack the enemy in his strong-holds. Two glasses of vin de Beaume will settle him." "But," said Morisseau, as he saw his host filling up his glass, "my head is very weak, and I have not gotten drunk since I left the service." "So be it, dear Morisseau. I will go for the second service, which the restorateur leaves in the kitchen. Excuse my having no servant, but two old soldiers like us can do without attendants." Rinoccio went into the next room. When Morisseau was alone he took a little vial from his pocket, opened it, and poured a few drops into the Corsican's glass, the third portion of the contents of which he had swallowed. Scarcely had he replaced the vial when the Corsican entered, having a plate on which were two large pork chops, with a gravy of _cornichons_. "The second entry will make a man drink like a fish," said the Corsican. "Let us drink, then," said Morisseau, knocking his glass against his host's. "Let us drink," said the latter; and Morisseau's eyes glared as he saw him bear the glass to his lips. His joy, however, was short. "Let us drink something better than this," said the Corsican, who, as he spoke, threw away the contents of his glass. "I have some champagne given me by my General, one of the old guard, and I shall never find a more suitable occasion to uncork it." He took from a shelf near the table a long wire-fastened bottle, covered with a venerable dust. Morisseau was not yet in despair, for he relied for an opportunity to use his vial on the third service. Paolo dexterously uncorked the bottle, and poured out a glass of perfumed wine to the imperial furrier, who, when he had knocked his glass against the Corsican's, drank it down, while the latter, just when he got it to his mouth, saw a fragment of cork on its brim. He took it out with his knife, lifted up the glass, and said: "To the Emperor. May he whom the enemies call the Corsican Ogre, soon eat up the Prussians, Austrians, and beggarly Cossacks. May he cut them into cat's-meat. May he cut off the _ailles de Pigeon_ of all the _Voltigeurs de Louis XVI._ restored by the Bourbons. May he--" Rinoccio paused in his speech, for his guest looked pale and disturbed, and seemed about to go to sleep. "_Per Bacco!_" said M. Morisseau, at once speaking the purest Italian, "what did that devil give me to drink?" "Probably," said the Corsican, in the same tongue, "what you would have given me, had I not taken care to empty in the fireplace the glass into which you had poured some narcotic or other." "Christ!" said the furrier, "the beggar saw me!" "Perfectly, Signor Pignana." "He knows me," said the false furrier, attempting to rise. The Corsican, however, pushed him back, and Pignana sank stupidly on his seat. "Curse you, Stenio, you shall pay for this!..."